Footnote to my post #16445:
Susan E. Rice, Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Rhodes Scholars Southern Africa Forum, 1999 Bram Fischer Memorial Lecture
Rhodes House, Oxford, England, May 13, 1999
United States Interests in Africa:
Post-Cold War, Post-Apartheid
state.gov
Excerpt:
Africa cannot be an afterthought. We cannot afford to postpone our efforts to build a strong U.S.-Africa partnership. This partnership is a necessity, and must be a priority, if we are to secure our own future in the 21st century.
We have other important strategic interests in Africa as well. Africa is the source of over 13% of our nation's imported oil, compared to 17% from the Middle East. Within the next decade, oil imports from Africa are projected to surpass those from the Persian Gulf region. The U.S. relies on Africa as a source of strategic minerals, including platinum, cobalt, bauxite and manganese.
Moreover, the Cape controls shipping between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The Horn is a potential choke point for traffic between the Suez Canal and the Indian Ocean. Our base access agreement with Kenya is key to our ability to project force, when necessary, in the Persian Gulf. Add these facts to our increasing stake in Africa's emerging market--and Africa's importance to the economic well being of the U.S. becomes self-evident.
America's reliance on Africa's markets is, in fact, growing by leaps and bounds. Almost 2 years ago, the global financial crisis caused a major downturn in U.S. exports and unease in our export-driven economy. Yet while U.S. exports to the troubled economies of Asia and elsewhere were down by almost a third last year, U.S. exports to Africa increased 8%. Last year, we exported 45% more to Sub-Saharan Africa than to all the states of the former Soviet Union combined.
Major U.S. companies are making large investments in Africa--from Enron's $2.5 billion contract to build a steel plant in Mozambique, to Southwestern Bell Corporation's $700 million stake in South Africa/Telkom. Boeing provides 60% of Africa's airline fleet. Caterpillar now has dealerships in 15 African countries. Fully 100,000 U.S. jobs are tied to our exports to Africa.
Still, the United States' share of the African market is small--only 7%, making it the largest untapped market for the U.S. in the world. Africa's potential for tomorrow's creative entrepreneurs is explosive, especially in the natural resource sector, consumer products, agribusiness, infrastructure and telecommunications. Just think: there are more telephones in the Borough of Manhattan, or in central London, than in all of Africa.
Nearly 50% of Africans are under the age of 15. These are young people who can develop fierce brand loyalties for everything from soft drinks to blue jeans. Africa, a market of approximately 700 million potential consumers, truly represents the last frontier for U.S. exporters and investors.
Finally, we have a significant humanitarian stake in Africa and strong cultural and historical ties to the African people. Some 12% of Americans, almost 33 million people, trace their roots to the African continent. Many Americans, not just African-Americans, feel a strong obligation to better the lives of people throughout Africa. They care not only about helping to prevent and resolve conflicts but also about responding effectively alongside the international community to crises and humanitarian disasters. Last year, the United States provided almost $700 million in assistance to the victims of war, famine and disease in Africa--from Sierra Leone to Sudan to Angola.
In the wake of the Cold War, President Clinton was among the first to stress that Africa's successes and failures matter directly to the United States and its citizens. Thus, he changed fundamentally the way the U.S. approaches Africa. We have moved beyond a patron-client relationship to a partnership based on mutual interest and mutual respect. We seek to work with our African partners to ensure our collective security and prosperity in the century to come.
Some 5 years ago, at the first-ever White House Conference on Africa, President Clinton said, "In the post-Cold War and post-apartheid world...[w]e have a new freedom and a new responsibility to see Africa--to see it whole, to see it in specific nations and specific problems and specific promise." He went on to insist: "[We must] develop a policy [toward Africa that will]...unleash the human potential of the people of the African continent in ways that [will] lead to a safer and more prosperous world, a better life for them and a better life for us."
Since 1994, we have crafted and are now implementing a visionary economic policy toward Africa that seeks to spur economic reform and growth--both for the benefit of the United States and Africa. Under President Clinton's Partnership for Economic Growth and Opportunity, we have taken important steps to encourage greater two-way trade and private sector investment through more than $750 million in investment financing and insurance.
We are also relieving hundreds of millions of dollars of Africa's debt--debt that threatens to retard progress in Africa's fastest reforming economies. In March, President Clinton announced a proposal, which he will press at the G-8 summit in Cologne in June, to relieve an additional $70 billion of global debt. African nations will be the primary beneficiaries. Debt relief, along with pending domestic legislation such as the African Growth and Opportunity Act, will directly support African nations making difficult strides to open their markets, invest in their people, and practice good governance.
The United States is also actively working to strengthen democracy and promote human rights in Africa. We provided substantial assistance to support South Africa's first democratic election in 1994. We helped finance Nigeria's recent elections and, more importantly, will invest for years to come in establishing credible, grass-roots structures and genuinely democratic institutions in this vitally important country. At the same time, we are implementing a Great Lakes Justice program to bolster civil and military judicial institutions in volatile Central Africa. The President's $120 million Education for Development and Democracy Initiative also aims to help improve access to technology, support girls' education, and boost civil society across the African continent.
[snip] |
